South Asian Heritage Month has begun: it runs from 18^th July through to 17^th August, giving us plenty of time to celebrate.

Sporting achievements and celebrations

The theme this year very much lends itself to celebrating the opportunities that sports can provide to empower people across any and all of the countries that make up South Asia. Here in Shropshire, we are going to take a closer look at the positive effects of sporting achievements for people of Afghan heritage, for whom sports provides an opportunity to be ‘free to be me’ despite the current rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It has already been a year to celebrate, as the men’s cricket team made it all the way to the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup tournament, defeating Australia on the way in an historic first, as well as beating Bangladesh to reach the semi-final against South Africa. They bowed out with grace at that point, and more than a few extra fans.

Collecting the player-of-the-match award for the Australia match, Afghanistan's Gulbadin Naib said: “It is a great moment, not only for me but my nation, my people."

Meanwhile captain Rashid Khan said the win would "give people back home so much hope".

"Cricket is the only source of happiness back home, you all know that," he said.

A bit of cricket history

The first recorded cricket match in Afghanistan took place in 1839 when imperial British troops took a break from the Anglo-Afghan War to crack leather on willow in Kabul. However, it wasn't until the mid 1990s that cricket really began to take root in Afghanistan, cultivated by Afghans who had been in refugee camps in Pakistan and returned to their birthplace with passion for the game.

The Afghan Cricket Board (ACB) was set up in 1995, the year before the Taliban began its first stint in power.

The national team was established after the Taliban was ousted by the US-led invasion of 2001 and became a member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2017.

The team play wearing the black, red and green flag rather than the white flag adopted by the country's Taliban government after it swept back to power in 2021. They play home matches in the United Arab Emirates under a five-year agreement.

The country's restrictions on women have seen the national team boycotted by some countries. In March Australia pulled out of a three-match series that was scheduled to take place in the UAE in August - the third time it has declined to play Afghanistan.

Cricket Australia said government advice was that conditions for Afghan women and girls "are getting worse" but said Australia would play Afghanistan in tournaments.

Female cricketer Firooza Afghan - who like most of the country's women's team was granted an emergency visa to Australia after the Taliban came to power - posted her reaction to the Afghan victory.

"Same country, same sport, same talent, same goal, same ability - but you cannot play because you are a woman," she added.

Addressing the gender imbalance

In this Olympic year, we are also going to focus upon sporting achievements to come, starting with the achievements of actually making it to the starting lines in Paris. The International Olympic Committee declared in June that Afghanistan would field a gender-equal team of three men and three women "because of the demonstration that it gives to the world, at home in Afghanistan and also to the rest of the world".

The IOC added that no Taliban official would be allowed and they recognise that both the head of Afghanistan's national Olympic committee and its secretary general are currently in exile.

Kimia Yousofi will represent what she described as "the stolen dreams and aspirations" of Afghanistan's women after being named in the nation's six-person team for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The 100m sprinter was Afghanistan's flag-bearer at the Tokyo Games three years ago, but fled her home country to neighbouring Iran to escape persecution when the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

The 28-year-old was one of five athletes and administrators, plus families, with ties to the Olympic movement who received safe passage into Australia a year later.

"It's an honour to represent the girls of my homeland once again - girls and women who have been deprived of basic rights, including education, which is the most important one," she said.

Yousofi will make her third appearance at the Olympics and it will be the first time Afghanistan has had three female athletes at the Games.

The other two women are cycling sisters, Yulduz and Fariba Hashimi.

Their male counterparts will feature in athletics, swimming and judo, with Kimia Yusofi's Australian coach John Quinn acting as the team's head coach.

All of them, except the judoka, are based outside Afghanistan. As with the men’s cricket team, the team is competing under the black, red and green flag and anthem of the Western-backed former republic, which was ousted by the Taliban.

Since gaining power in 2021, the Taliban - who say they respect women's rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law and local customs - have closed girls' high schools, placed travel restrictions on women without a male guardian and restricted access to parks and gyms.

Sisters are doing it (not just) for themselves

The following is an edit of a fascinating BBC article by Firuz Rahimi and Peter Ball. It illustrates that Fariba and Yulduz Hashimi are the very epitome of the theme “Free to be me” whilst demonstrating their awareness that what they do is of significance for all women in and from Afghanistan.

In a world where many elite athletes take up sport almost as soon as they can walk, Fariba, 21, and Yulduz, 24, came late to cycling. They grew up in Faryab, one of the most remote and conservative provinces in Afghanistan, where it was practically unheard of to see women on bicycles.

Fariba was 14 and Yulduz 17 when they saw an advert for a local cycle race and decided to take part.

The sisters used false names and covered themselves up, wearing big baggy clothing, large headscarves and sunglasses so people didn't recognise them.

Race day dawned, and incredibly the sisters came first and second.

“It felt amazing,” says Fariba. “I felt like a bird who could fly."

Their parents asked them to stop cycling, which did not come without dangers: people tried to hit them with cars or rickshaws as they rode or threw stones at them as they cycled past.

"People were abusive. All I wanted to do was win races," says Yulduz.

In 2021, four years after the sisters started riding, the Taliban retook control of the country and clamped down on women’s rights, restricting their access to education and limiting how they could travel. They also banned women from taking part in sport.

Yulduz and Fariba had dreamed of one day competing in the Olympics. Now they knew if they wanted to race at all they had to leave Afghanistan.

Using contacts in the cycling community they managed to secure seats on an Italian evacuation flight, along with three teammates. Once in Italy, the women joined a cycling team and got proper coaching for the first time.

But leaving their homeland and family was not easy.

“The biggest thing for me is to be away from my mother,” says Fariba. “I never thought that because of cycling I would be separated from my brothers and sisters.”

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan also threw into doubt whether the country would even be allowed to compete at the Olympics. National Olympic Committees are supposed to select athletes for the Games without any government interference.

As the Taliban’s ban on women playing sport breaks this rule, by preventing women being chosen for Afghanistan’s team, it led to calls for the country to be banned from the Olympics - as it had been when the militant group was last in power.

Then, in June, International Olympic Committee announced that it had arranged for the special gender-equal team representing Afghanistan to go the Paris Olympics. It would be made up of three women and three men. And both the sisters are among them.

“We always dreamt of taking part in the Olympic Games, this is our dream come true,” Yulduz says.

“Despite all the rights that were taken from us we can show that we can achieve great success, we will be able to represent 20 million Afghan women.”

“Our achievement belongs to Afghanistan,” adds Fariba. “This belongs to Afghanistan women. I am going to the Olympics because of them.”

A bit more history

The month begins on 18th July, the date that the Indian Independence Act 1947 gained royal assent from King George VI, and ends on the 17th August, the date that the Radcliffe Line was published in 1947, which finally set out where the border between India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) would be.

The start and end dates show just how much of an influence Britain has had on South Asia as a whole over the last few centuries. The dates coincide to a large extent with the South Asian month of Saravan/Sawan, which is the main monsoon month when the region’s habitat undergoes renewal. Having it take place across the two Western calendar months of July and August is entirely apt, as it respects the traditions of the South Asian calendars. This period also includes several independence days connected to South Asian countries.

What countries make up South Asia?

• Afghanistan
• Bangladesh
• Bhutan
• India
• The Maldives
• Nepal
• Pakistan
• Sri Lanka

Every single one of those countries has been hugely impacted by its relationship with Britain, primarily through war, colonisation, and ultimately via the British Empire. People of South Asian heritage are a significant part of the British population, with about 1 in every 20 people in the country being of South Asian heritage.

What is the local picture?

In Shropshire at the time of the 2021 Census there were 1,494 people in Shropshire who were born in Southern Asia.  The majority of these 71.3% or 1,065 were born in India, 12.5% in Pakistan and 7.8% in Bangladesh.  This makes up 0.5% of the total Shropshire population.  This population has increased since 2011 by 58% from 948 in 2011 to 1,494 in 2021. Most of this increase is from India and Pakistan.

In England and Wales at the time of the 2021 Census there were 2,126,722 people born in Southern Asia representing 3.6% of the total population, 73% of these were from India or Pakistan. The Southern Asian population in England and Wales has increased from 1,602,620 or by (30.6%) since 2011.

Source: Census 2021, ONS, Table TS012 Country of Birth Detailed